Timothy Findley pieced together the wars like a giant puzzle. When assembling a puzzle, a person must start from the outside and work their way out, slowly adding piece after piece until a clear overall picture is visible. Readers should understand that the themes, characters, and setting of this book function like puzzle pieces; they each weave themselves into the story and into each other. Their connections are the links that hold the book together, and one of the links at the heart of this puzzle is madness. To understand how madness seems to play a major role in the events of the war, we need to know which characters are mad, which characters are believed to be mad, and how madness affects masculinity. First, the definition of insanity is the quality or state of being insane. In certain circumstances like wars, everyone can potentially become a monster. In war, soldiers must face traumatic situations such as death. Some soldiers break down and become delusional because they can't handle the anxiety. Robert's madness did not begin on the battlefield, but at home, and he is not the only one becoming delusional. Mrs. Ross is not the only character to be considered crazy. Two people also condemn Robert for insanity. The two people are the whore and the commander. Ella, a prostitute, tries to convince Robert to have sex with her but he doesn't want to. Ella gets angry because she doesn't get paid if she doesn't have sex. Another reason for this is that the brothel will have a bad reputation. After hearing the explanation, Robert expresses his anger and Ella cowers in fear. After expressing his anger, he didn't need to have sex. He is forced to have sex but manages to get away from it without anyone knowing. If Robert had said he didn't want to have sex in front of his fellow soldiers, he would have been harassed. His masculinity will be diminished. The definition of masculinity is the quality or condition of being masculine and is traditionally considered characteristic of a man. Masculinity is like grades. It's hard to stay consistent. A “weak” characteristic leads to a decrease in the person’s masculinity. Robert Ross is considered crazy by a commander. For what? The reason is that he disobeyed an order from a commander and saved the horses..